Courage and Cowardice
by The needy stranger
Summary: After the incident with the thirteenth angel, Touji pushes against the limits imposed by his injuries.


DISCLAIMER - I don't own Neon Genesis Evangelion or any of its characters. That privilege belongs to GAINAX, though I certainly wouldn't complain if they decided that I deserved some of their wealth. Ah well, a fanfiction writer's life is a thankless life indeed (or is that just my life). ^_^  
  
Courage and Cowardice. A Neon Genesis Evangelion fanfiction by Richard Abraham.  
  
The gym was all but deserted, the result of a special request from one of the rooms two current occupants.  
  
The two of them had already been here for almost three quarters of an hour with only another fifteen minutes remaining in today's session.  
  
Only one of the occupants was actually there to work out, the other was there merely to supervise and co-ordinate the session.  
  
The young man using the equipment finished up on the rowing machine, his face clearly showing his dissatisfaction with his performance on the machine. His physio saw the boy's bleak expression and tried to banish the youngster's dour demeanour with words of encouragement.  
  
Unsurprisingly, the words had little effect, and why should they? The boy knew exactly what he had lost. He knew that he would never regain all that he used to be. That was just a fact you had to accept when you have lost a limb, or two in this case.  
  
The technology for prosthetic limbs had progressed with leaps and bounds over the last two decades, culminating in the technology the youth was currently outfitted with.  
  
Both his prosthetics were directly linked to his nervous system. Signals sent from the brain to where his left arm or leg used to be were picked up by incredibly sensitive sensors in the prosthetics. The artificial limbs translate these electrical pulses into computer code that the onboard systems can understand and execute the commands given to them.  
  
Despite this, the prosthetic limbs were not without their problems.  
  
The most obvious problem was that the link to the body's central nervous system was far from perfect. There are billions of different types of signals sent to a person's limbs everyday, sometimes the limbs would miss-translate these commands which would result in the limb doing something completely unexpected.  
  
To combat this problem, the sensors were adjusted to be less sensitive. This meant that only conscious and deliberate thought could move the prosthesis.  
  
While this removed the problem of random spastic jerking of the prosthesis, it resulted in the limb's movements being somewhat exaggerated and slower to react to stimuli, due to the fact that even the smallest movement required deliberate thought.  
  
However, the prosthetics were a definite step up from having no limbs at all. Though they would never come close to being able to perform even half as well as his original limbs.  
  
Despite this knowledge, and despite all the pain he had already been through, he never gave up. Everyday for the past two weeks, he would come here. Everyday, from 5pm to 6pm, he would push himself to the limits of his reduced abilities, striving to reach a level beyond what he would ever be able to attain.  
  
Thus it was with an unreduced will and limitless determination that the tousle haired adolescent moved onto lifting leg weights.  
  
He started off by lifting a moderate weight with both legs. He then tried lifting the same weight with only his left leg. After a few repetitions, he started increasing the weight the leg was lifting, experimenting with just how far he could push the prosthesis before he lost control over its movements and reactions.  
  
It wasn't long before the strain became evident in the youth's face. Sweat beaded his brow and every line of his face spoke of great exertion. The expression of disgust on his face told anyone watching exactly what he thought of his new limitations.  
  
He did not let it overwhelm him however, and pressed on with the exercise until his physio had to stop him with a warning hand on his shoulder and a few mumbled words.  
  
The boy took few minutes to rest and regain his wind before moving onto the final piece of equipment.  
  
The treadmill was the exercise that he finished every session off with and, of course, today was no different.  
  
He started out at a slow walking pace, giving himself a chance to become accustomed to the unique manipulations required to force the prosthetic leg to simulate walking.  
  
After this initial testing phase, the pace quickly increased, culminating with the occupant of the machine running at the maximum pace his new leg afforded him.  
  
Before the incident, maintaining this pace would not have even provided a challenge for the teenager. Now, however, his energy was quickly flagging, forcing him to slow the treadmill incrementally, until he was back down to a crisp walk.  
  
Using this pace as a cool down exercise, the boy stayed on the machine for a few more minutes. Eventually, he turned the machine off and stepped off the treadmill, left leg leading.  
  
After listening to a few words of encouragement from his physio, the boy turned and headed towards the exit on the opposite side of the gym from his unknown audience.  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Shinji sighed as he watched his best friend disappear through the doors on the opposite side of the gym from where he was observing.  
  
Of course, maybe a more appropriate term would be spying, considering he hadn't revealed himself to his friend at any point throughout the entire session, despite being there from the beginning.  
  
This hadn't even been the first session that Shinji had spied on. He had been every day for over a week, watching his friend's progress.  
  
When Shinji had first stumbled into Touji during one of his physiotherapy sessions, he had briefly entertained the notion of approaching the injured teen with the intention of dropping to his knees and begging for forgiveness.  
  
He had, of course been able to reason his way out of taking said action with the logic that Touji would not want anyone to see him in his weakened state, least of all the person who had crippled him in the first place.  
  
Even Shinji knew, however, that this reasoning was only a partial truth.  
  
Touji took great pride in his athletic abilities, his injuries were a devastating blow to his self-esteem. It was a given that he would not want anyone to see him like the cripple he viewed himself as.  
  
However, Shinji also knew that Touji bore him no special hatred for his part in his injuries. He had gotten enough massages through Kensuke to assure him of this.  
  
Nevertheless, it did not change the fact that it was he who had allowed those horrifying injuries to be inflicted on his best friend. Through his weakness and indecision, he was rendered helpless as the machine he was supposed to control, savagely ripped his friend's Eva apart. Shinji still didn't know whether he would ever again be able to look his friend in the eyes, knowing that he could have done something, anything to have stopped the dummy system from ever being used.  
  
Shinji turned away from the doors that gave access to the gym he had been spying on, and started in the direction of the exit.  
  
Maybe tomorrow would be the day that he rose above his fears and approached his friend. Yeah, tomorrow.  
  
-Fin-  
  
Author notes  
  
It's been a while eh? Well, I never said that I was the most prolific writer out there.  
  
Please, please , please review. How can I know what I'm doing right or wrong if nobody bothers telling me. Criticisms are welcome, flames will be handled with industrial sized extinguishers. Praise will be printed out and framed on my bedroom wall.  
  
O.K. on another note. I will release the first chapter of the sequel to Coming Closer as soon as I get it proofread. It's already done and waiting, nae BEGGING to be proofread, but I've not been in contact with my pre-reader for a while as his home life seems to be quite busy at the moment.  
  
If there's anybody out there who would like to proofread the story for me, give me a mail at needystranger@yahoo.co.uk 


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